Avenged Sevenfold have been progressing steadily since their inception in 1999. Formerly a hardcore/metal outfit, they’ve steadily changed their style over the years, giving themselves more scope for experimentation and eventually becoming a heavy rock outfit. Their latest album, Avenged Sevenfold, is once again different from their earlier works. City of Evil was the same in that the album was in a very different direction and this caused a lot of controversy within A7X’s fanbase.
This new album, altogether, is a masterpiece of songwriting and musicianship, the typical heavy riffs and wailing solos. Songs like Scream and Brompton Cocktail contain very strong riffs, setting a standard for the album as a whole. The ballad on this album, Gunslinger, is as usual, a very well engineered emotional trip.
There are also a few evidences of experimentation, with a selection of instruments featured in A Little Piece of Heaven and a vocal synthesiser used in Lost; a feature that, I feel, ruins the song. This album has some very good songs on it, but feels a bit disjointed. Put together, the CD seems more like a collection of good songs than one album.
Average Song Rating: 3.4/5
Hits: Critical Acclaim, Scream, Dear God
Shits: Lost
‘Lo! I have returned, under a new name, a new title and a new address. This is because I am a different person to the dick that was Squidgyegg (a shit name by the way, thought up at the age of 12). Most will be reading that thinking but thebearthatcares is a fucking stupid name too. Well at least I didn’t make it up myself. In fact, I haven’t been called Mark by anyone in the Physics Department at Exeter University for a long time. One of my bald associates (not bald at the time though) saw me very early one morning with bed-hair and a beard and thought I looked like a Care Bear, so the name Carebear stuck. Indeed, many students don’t even know my real name.
So, like I said, I’m back under a different identity as a different person. The main factor here would be that I recently started university, a life changing process for most people. Actually, I didn’t realise how much my life had changed until I spent a weekend at home after a couple of months away. I’m not sure if this is the case for everyone else in the same situation, but I appreciated my family much more once I’d been away for a while. The fact that I could eat a good meal without actually cooking it seemed amazing. I will be returning home for Christmas in a few days and I’m hoping that I won’t settle in too much and will continue to appreciate how little effort I have to put into living.
I’ve been thinking about starting a new blog for a while now, mainly with the idea of reviewing albums that I own so that people can see I like music for a reason. This harks back to the way I used to get really annoyed when people assumed I liked all hardcore just because I liked Converge. Hopefully anyone who will read the following series will realise that my love for music runs deeper than just being loud and shit like that.
I need a shower.
